Guild Wars 2

there are barriers everywhere. want to play level 100 fractals to get the best loot possible…get those asc stuff + ar + skill.

want to play the last story mission and get the rewards, be it living world or personal story? go and play those which came first.

ive successfully raided with people who only play for like 1 to 2 hours gw2 a week.
bo problems, they could do the mechanics and we got through.
there is no barrier for going into raids…if u beat them, thats another point, but raids per se have no barrier.

if u start swimming or whatever, u can’t expect to get olypic gold without training.

anet said that raids are the hard content, which normally shouldn’t even be puggable.

you paid for the content, wich got advertised earlier, so you have to live with it…yes they said it…they said raids will be hard, and you will get the legendary armor only through raiding.

with that in mind, you still got hot and therefore have no obligation to complain about anything related to legendary armor or raiding.

no, there is no easy mode, no you can’t get >this< legendary armor outside of raids.

and yes, there are people wich waited for 3 years for harder content, yes we are not the majority, still we don’t want to see any lighter stuff in these areas. there is tons of openworld stuff, if you want to experience raiding, do it as we did it, if you dont want to…don’t raid.

don’t complain about the story, the story has nothing to do with anything else. its not even high density. you go in, fight a guard, read about some prisoners and that they get killed. boom, second boss because to many dead prisoners, boom endboss w1 who held those.

thats the story of w1, more or less. nothing big…just that it doesn’t get boring and the bosses have at least a bit of meaning in this world.

anyways, this thread should be closed like the other ones too, makes no sense to discuss the same kitten over and over again,

there is no barrier for going into raids…if u beat them, thats another point, but raids per se have no barrier.

You can keep saying that all you like, but you aren’t going to convince anyone who didn’t already believe that. If people believe that barriers exist which limit their ability to participate in raids, then just accept that this is a true fact, from their perspective. Then decide whether you care or not, that is the choice that is available to you, not whether the barrier exists for them or not.

anet said that raids are the hard content, which normally shouldn’t even be puggable.

Yes they did, and many of us are saying that we don’t like that, at least not as the only option for experiencing the raids, so we would like other options to be offered, even if that’s not how ANet originally intended it. ANet had changed numerous things since launch from how they were originally intended, we would like this to be one such element.

and yes, there are people wich waited for 3 years for harder content, yes we are not the majority, still we don’t want to see any lighter stuff in these areas. there is tons of openworld stuff, if you want to experience raiding, do it as we did it, if you dont want to…don’t raid.

And just because you don’t want to see lighter stuff doesn’t mean that it should not be added for those that do, just as just because we didn’t want harder stuff, didn’t mean that they shouldn’t have added it for people like you.

you are completly wrong here with your assumption.
if you think, i don’t want to see light stuff and i only want to raid 24/7, you are completly wrong.
everyone likes to take a chill pill and just stroll arround in the world, i dont want a darksouls everywhere, else i would play that.

i just think that content should stay at it is and shouldn’t have 100 modes so everyone can play on their personal level they like.

i think to experience certain content, people should move out of their comfort zone and polish their gameplay.

this ain’t a short term mobile game, its an mmo and there is already enough content to go with if you just want to play abit.
no need to make for everything 100 options so every player is satisfied.

there is already so much time wasted in stuff, and other stuff where people cared about got never any love.
i just say no in regard of dumping down content, because thats what it is.

making it on mobile game level if you make an easy mode. there are tons out there of these games, no need for raids to be there.

also if i wanted truly hardcore raids, i wouldn’t also be playing guild wars 2, they are already not hard in any way.

i just think that content should stay at it is and shouldn’t have 100 modes so everyone can play on their personal level they like.

Life Fractals do? I can agree on that, I don’t think that they need 100 different modes, but having two would not be some huge leap. The game has a certain baseline level of acceptable difficulty. If you can’t meet that then you really can’t expect to enjoy the game because most content is tuned to that level of difficulty. But if content is tuned to be harder or at the very least more logistically inconvenient than that baseline bar, then I think it’s reasonable for people to be upset about that, and to seek a version more in keeping with the rest of the game that they enjoy.

i think to experience certain content, people should move out of their comfort zone and polish their gameplay.

If that’s what they would like to do, if that’s what would make them happy, then that’s what they should do. Bout if that’s not what they want to do, if that would NOT make them happy, then I see no benefit in them having no other options.

also if i wanted truly hardcore raids, i wouldn’t also be playing guild wars 2, they are already not hard in any way.

If these raids are not “hard enough,” then what’s the harm in making them even less hard for people that might appreciate them that way?

skarpak.8594:

there are barriers everywhere. want to play level 100 fractals to get the best loot possible…get those asc stuff + ar + skill.

want to play the last story mission and get the rewards, be it living world or personal story? go and play those which came first.

You really are missing the point here. This is not about entitlement or free loot, this is about accessability, if you want to be entitled, thats fine.

skarpak.8594:

ive successfully raided with people who only play for like 1 to 2 hours gw2 a week.
bo problems, they could do the mechanics and we got through.
there is no barrier for going into raids…if u beat them, thats another point, but raids per se have no barrier.

if u start swimming or whatever, u can’t expect to get olypic gold without training.

I like how you say this… and yet in your next comment you contradict your own point by stating it shouldnt be easy.

skarpak.8594:

anet said that raids are the hard content, which normally shouldn’t even be puggable.

you paid for the content, wich got advertised earlier, so you have to live with it…yes they said it…they said raids will be hard, and you will get the legendary armor only through raiding.

So let me get this straight, I “paid” to be locked out of content? Your logic is painful, no mate, you cant ask people to pay for something and then lock them out of it.

Thats like offering tickets to a concert only to be told that you cant enter because you didnt get the VIP quota.

skarpak.8594:

with that in mind, you still got hot and therefore have no obligation to complain about anything related to legendary armor or raiding.

no, there is no easy mode, no you can’t get >this< legendary armor outside of raids.

There will probably, be a way to get legendary armor outside of raiding, because it would be downright stupid to deny people the ability to catch up to current players.

And as for easy mode? No one is asking to stop people playing a challenging set of content, what they’re asking for, is access to the story.

skarpak.8594:

and yes, there are people wich waited for 3 years for harder content, yes we are not the majority, still we don’t want to see any lighter stuff in these areas. there is tons of openworld stuff, if you want to experience raiding, do it as we did it, if you dont want to…don’t raid.

don’t complain about the story, the story has nothing to do with anything else. its not even high density. you go in, fight a guard, read about some prisoners and that they get killed. boom, second boss because to many dead prisoners, boom endboss w1 who held those.

Except that in Wing 3 other things much more significant happen which THANKS FOR SPOILING BY THE WAY.

skarpak.8594:

thats the story of w1, more or less. nothing big…just that it doesn’t get boring and the bosses have at least a bit of meaning in this world.

anyways, this thread should be closed like the other ones too, makes no sense to discuss the same kitten over and over again,

Obnoxious man, just utterly obnoxious, you represent the very elitist entitled community that creates toxic behaviour in the raid scene and why it even has a bad name in the first place.

Seriously rethink your choice of words in future, this is the classic problem everyone has to endure, your kind of player that can never be happy until no one but you is.

sure, i am kittening toxic and an elitist, for bringing through beginners since i started raiding, constantly joining guilds to help them out with their problems and even writing guides.

kittening toxic, i should be banned off the game.

my point is: the raids arent hard. i like them how they are now, nothing too big, but also not too easy. you could say, in the right place.
i raid since they came out and i got so many peoples opinion directly from the game via teamspeak and writing with them….how they startet out, how they tought raiding is way to hard and whatever.
in the end everyone i had contact with said only one thing: you were right, its not so hard as i imagined, only piece that was missing was having a certain mindset, like not to get carried through, more like that everyone should pull their own weight.

my statement is not off btw. you wrote it completly false with the wrong sitation.
its more like u buy tickets for a rock concert wich is also advised as one and then u think you will be seeing some pop or hiphop.

anet made it clear in the beginning what they will sell with hot. completly…there was nothing hidden with their words.
and you got what you bought.

and honestly…i don’t think anyone in this thread really wants to experience the story, just because of the story. most people made already clear in the other threads, they want the rewards.

maybe there will be a legendary armor for openworld…pvp, wvw…whatever. i have nothing against it. but not this one, as easy at it is.

content shouldn’t be fragmentet just to meet everyones standarts.
fraktals arent raids, they are fractals with this clearly set in mind how they work.

only thing i think is, that most of the guys writing here can’t handle it, that so many people are against their idea of raids.
maybe anet will hear you and also change something, but that won’t me make change my mind, that it shouldn’t be like this.
so i will always go against it, like u will always go for your opinion.

but calling people elistist because of that? nice way of going, at least i know now, with who i am talking.

looks like its not the raiding community wich is toxic.

sure, i am kittening toxic and an elitist, for bringing through beginners since i started raiding, constantly joining guilds to help them out with their problems and even writing guides.

kittening toxic, i should be banned off the game.

I don’t think you should be banned from the game, and if you help new players learn the raids then that’s commendable, but you should also be willing to understand that not everyone is willing or able to learn the raids in their current form, yet these people still want to enjoy those elements of the game in a way that is similar to the rest of the content in the game.

This is not a problem for you.

The version you enjoy would still be there, and you can continue to enjoy it, this is for other people, people who are not you and don’t want to be you. Let them be happy.

maybe there will be a legendary armor for openworld…pvp, wvw…whatever. i have nothing against it. but not this one, as easy at it is.

You keep going on, and on, and on about how “easy” the current raids are, from your perspective, and that may be true, from your perspective, but if they are already sooooooooooo easy, then what would be the harm in providing a version that is easier still, for those who would enjoy that sort of thing?

looks like its not the raiding community wich is toxic.

It is toxic to say “I’m happy with what I’ve got, so even if you aren’t happy with what you’ve got, and giving you want you want would not harm me in any way, I don’t want you to have it anyway.”

I think that there is toxicity on both sides of the discussion, but none of this toxicity would have happened had raids not been introduced in the first place.

I don’t really mind easy mode or story mode, heck they could give everyone legendary armor for free tomorrow and I wouldn’t mind (mine is done, I have everything ), but I believe most players struggle with finding 9 other people to raid with, and I’m not sure easy mode would make it happen.

Every time I see someone complaining about accessibility, they aren’t struggling with bosses or enrage timer or mechanics, but just finding a steady 10 man group.

There’s no way to fix this, people have expectation and will always do, no matter how easy something is :S

but I believe most players struggle with finding 9 other people to raid with, and I’m not sure easy mode would make it happen.

I believe it would work out. The problem with the current raids is not “finding 9 other people.” It’s “finding 9 other people who:”

• all know what they’re doing at least as well as you do.
• each fit a fairly specific necessary role, and do that job well
• will stick around long enough to get through the content, or learn along with you.

You need to form relatively stable long term groups, you need to trust other members, because the content is challenging enough that anything less is a waste of everyone’s time.

If they made an adequate easy mode, then “finding 9 other people” is as simple as opening LFG and accepting the first 9 people who show up. Chances are that most of them will be good enough and geared enough to get the job done. You don’t need to organize the same group night after night, because replacement members are likely to be just as useful as the ones who left.

You don’t need organized long term groups to run standard dungeons, not unless that’s how you want to play it, you just LFG and grab four other people. The only difference between that an an easy mode raid would be that it would grab another five people, which might take about twice as long (although likely less than that, since “new hotness” raids are in higher demand than “vanilla” dungeons), but shouldn’t take anywhere near as long as trying to organize a current raid party from scratch that stands any chance of passing it.

I’m not gonna get bogged down in this thread. I’m just gonna respond to this one.

Astralporing.1957:

Good. For the most part, those are damaging to the game.

If you want a ‘non-toxic’ raiding environment all you have to do is get nine friends.

If you want a ‘non-toxic’ raiding environment all you have to do is get nine friends.

Just friends you’re prepared to lose.

Why do ppl keep classifying casuals as lazy kittens. I always though being casual means you simply don’t play the game a lot raids are fine the only issue is the majority in raiding thinking certain classes are the only viable choice aka ele dps or druid heals, ppl can seriously play just about w/e class they want as long as they can full fill the role they wanted to go in kitten when you have some person/s going in with soldiers gear or some other form of vit/toughness gear without pure dps stats and dps is low that’s literally them being a kitten because they don’t care about the group. It’s why meta battle was even created in the first place because ppl kept joining groups in outright tank ish like gear with selfish utility/weps when dungeons were the main thing.

As for the actual getting into raids….is this game not an MMO you know play with other ppl if you want to raid bad enough you can find a group or make one specify what it is if it’s a beginner group etc most likely going to fail but that’s life and you can choose to learn from it or not.

Really though the biggest thing I see when it comes to raiding is fear general outright fear, fear of being told your doing it wrong or being given advice be it nice or mean just fear and it’s sad to see something like that on a video game have such an effect on the subject of raiding in general in this game and others.

Tekoneiric.6817:

Harper.4173:

The reason you don’t get that in open world PvE is because open world PvE is failproof – so nobody cares what you do or how you do it.

That aside – why don’t open and cleared raid instances work for you?

Rather than getting someone’s incomplete sloppy seconds it would be nice to get the story also. There is a reason I and many others don’t like to join in parties with others. It’s not about not wanting to improve or to get that reward that high strung raiders need to feel special it’s about wanting to access story content and maps without having to deal with party dynamics.

Every single time I go into environments dungeons with a party it’s the same. I end up regretting it because the party leader throws a fit when I zig when they wanted me to zag. There is a video floating around out there showing a kid freaking out at a PC, yelling and banging at his keyboard. I imagine the high strung gamers in dungeons and raids acting the same way when another player doesn’t zig when they wanted them to zag.

I don’t have the ascended or legendary equipment, it’s not that big deal to me. I may get it one day; I may not, it doesn’t matter to me. I don’t need that legendary back piece to feel good about myself. I go in GW2 to relax, get rid of work stress and generally have a good time. In PvE if I encounter something I don’t complete/defeat I put it aside and come back at it when I feel like it. It would be nice to have access to the story in those maps so that I get those missing chapters. Raid locking story content was a horrible idea for ANet.

If they had given raiders exclusive access for a short time as raids into a new area then moved them to open world it wouldn’t be a big deal. IMHO beta maps should be raided first then moved to open world maps so raider can move onto the next beta maps. 6 months exclusive access for raid groups would be fine. They could reward the raider with special stuff and titles. In between beta maps they could give raiders staged non-story training maps.

Are you for real?
Incomplete? The instances are complete -every bit of lore is there for you the person coming in just as it is for the group that clears. EVERY bit.

You want everything handed to you – but you forget this is an MMO. It will by definition have sub-par single player experiences because it is not a single player game. The devs have already accommodated you to a large extent allowing you the same access to lore without having to find 9 other people ( you only need ONE opener) and without having to do the fights at all.

At best the most they should do and waste their time doing is give you the chance to open your own fully cleared instance. That’s it. You want more than that? How about you work for it.

And your vision of players is twisted. I don’t freak out when you zag if I want to zig. I kick. It saves us both a lot of trouble.

You also fail to understand that generating content means keeping the content after you generated it.
Sure – I’ve had a lot of Forsaken Thicket but after I’m done with it other new players will join and get into raiding and might want to experience it – but won’t be able to if you make it open-world.

Just because you can’t have something doesn’t mean you have to ruin it for those who can have it – especially since the only thing keeping you from it is your self-imposed stance of not wanting to do it the way everyone else is doing it.

Ohoni.6057:

I would be fine with Option 1 as part of a solution, but they still need to have access to the existing raid rewards through some reasonable non-raid means. Option 2 would be better than nothing, but frankly I don’t see why most players should have to wait what would likely be a year or more to access the content, as well as incoming players never being able to experience the original version.

My position remains that there should be at least two concurrent difficulty levels to the content, one at or above the current one, one significantly below the current one and balanced to be roughly equivalent in difficulty and logistical management as existing dungeon content, with the easier version providing a lower quantity of reward, but still retaining a path to the Envoy armor to players who are not suited for the existing raids.

they still need to have access to the existing raid rewards through some reasonable non-raid means.

This cracks me up – it’s the best thing I’ve read in years. You’re contradicting yourself so bad it hurts.

access to raid rewards through non-raid means. Why? Why would they do this? The rewards they put in RAIDS were put there to be obtained through RAID means. That’s why they are RAID rewards and not just generic rewards placed elsewhere in the game. Is it so hard to comprehend?

If they wanted people who don’t raid to have raid rewards you would have seen them for sale at other vendors for stuff like map currency and whatnot. They’re IN THE RAID because you’re supposed to get them BY RAIDING.

GreyWolf.8670:

TexZero.7910:

GreyWolf.8670:

Sykper.6583:

GreyWolf.8670:

RoRo.8270:

Raids were advertised as challenging content. Not sure why players feel they need to be catered and have access to everything

Are you ok with the raids not being included in the price of the expansion and you can pay for them separately, then?

They came as part of the package. Don’t know why anyone would want less content for the same price, much like how you get a new TV and they give you extra video cables you don’t need, but might as well have. You can’t ask to get those cables to get taken out of the package. Although you could personally toss them out when you get home, but other customers who get that same TV might want or need them.

“Don’t know why anyone would want less content for the same price…”

This is exactly my point. Everyone paid for the raid but not everyone has access to it.

Walk in by yourself and get put in a map instance with others. Walk in as a premade and get your “elite” mode experience with just your group. Problem solved and everyone gets what they paid for.

Everyone has access to the raid. It’s your choice not to form a group, not to socialize, not to attempt to learn it and to expect to be carried through the content.

The choice not do do something is not the same as the content not being available.

Either you didn’t read my post or you just want to make sure you have something others don’t. I’m not sure which but I’m done.

IT’s good that you’re done but explain to me why is it wrong to have something others don’t?
Why considering you did the activity required to get that thing and those others didn’t.

Ohoni.6057:

Fixed that mistake there, you almost implied there was some literal barrier for entry. Anyone can create a raid and go in. Anyone can go into a cleared instance and map out everything, this isn’t a difficult concept.

There are physical barriers, and there are practical barriers. A practical barrier is STILL a barrier.

There’s always going to be excuses. If people want the loot they can get the loot. If they can’t raid because of “physical barriers” they can shell out some $$ and get gold and buy their way in. IT’s not that hard.

But why have something be hard when you can ask for handouts right?

GreyWolf.8670:

Sykper.6583:

GreyWolf.8670:

Sykper.6583:

GreyWolf.8670:

RoRo.8270:

Raids were advertised as challenging content. Not sure why players feel they need to be catered and have access to everything

Are you ok with the raids not being included in the price of the expansion and you can pay for them separately, then?

They came as part of the package. Don’t know why anyone would want less content for the same price, much like how you get a new TV and they give you extra video cables you don’t need, but might as well have. You can’t ask to get those cables to get taken out of the package. Although you could personally toss them out when you get home, but other customers who get that same TV might want or need them.

“Don’t know why anyone would want less content for the same price…”

This is exactly my point. Everyone paid for the raid and everyone has access to it.

Fixed that mistake there, you almost implied there was some literal barrier for entry. Anyone can create a raid and go in. Anyone can go into a cleared instance and map out everything, this isn’t a difficult concept.

An empty instance is not playable content. I assume you’d be ok with them clearing out the entire raid zone and you’d be happy just wandering around in an empty room, too?

Wait – didn’t this discussion start on the premise that people wanted the lore? The lore is ALL there – in the cleared instance.

Ohoni.6057:

there is no barrier for going into raids…if u beat them, thats another point, but raids per se have no barrier.

You can keep saying that all you like, but you aren’t going to convince anyone who didn’t already believe that. If people believe that barriers exist which limit their ability to participate in raids, then just accept that this is a true fact, from their perspective. Then decide whether you care or not, that is the choice that is available to you, not whether the barrier exists for them or not.

anet said that raids are the hard content, which normally shouldn’t even be puggable.

Yes they did, and many of us are saying that we don’t like that, at least not as the only option for experiencing the raids, so we would like other options to be offered, even if that’s not how ANet originally intended it. ANet had changed numerous things since launch from how they were originally intended, we would like this to be one such element.

and yes, there are people wich waited for 3 years for harder content, yes we are not the majority, still we don’t want to see any lighter stuff in these areas. there is tons of openworld stuff, if you want to experience raiding, do it as we did it, if you dont want to…don’t raid.

And just because you don’t want to see lighter stuff doesn’t mean that it should not be added for those that do, just as just because we didn’t want harder stuff, didn’t mean that they shouldn’t have added it for people like you.

Their subjective barriers are THEIR Problem to overcome – not Anet’s and not mine or other players’.

The fact that players CAN raid proves that it can be done – whether or not certain individuals can or cannot raid is a problem that is their to manage by themselves.

Yes they did, and many of us are saying that we don’t like that, at least not as the only option for experiencing the raids, so we would like other options to be offered, even if that’s not how ANet originally intended it. ANet had changed numerous things since launch from how they were originally intended, we would like this to be one such element.

Oh – you don’t like that Anet made a choice that doesn’t cater to you? So sad.
I didn’t like that for the first 3 years of its life GW2 catered only to really really bad casual players. And I had to suck it up. Now they’re not only catering to that demographic – I dealt with it – I’m sure you’ll find a way to deal with it too.
I would like this to NOT be one such element – and I’ll put my money down to back up my claims too. I suggest others do the same.

Ohoni.6057:

but I believe most players struggle with finding 9 other people to raid with, and I’m not sure easy mode would make it happen.

I believe it would work out. The problem with the current raids is not “finding 9 other people.” It’s “finding 9 other people who:”

• all know what they’re doing at least as well as you do.
• each fit a fairly specific necessary role, and do that job well
• will stick around long enough to get through the content, or learn along with you.

You need to form relatively stable long term groups, you need to trust other members, because the content is challenging enough that anything less is a waste of everyone’s time.

If they made an adequate easy mode, then “finding 9 other people” is as simple as opening LFG and accepting the first 9 people who show up. Chances are that most of them will be good enough and geared enough to get the job done. You don’t need to organize the same group night after night, because replacement members are likely to be just as useful as the ones who left.

You don’t need organized long term groups to run standard dungeons, not unless that’s how you want to play it, you just LFG and grab four other people. The only difference between that an an easy mode raid would be that it would grab another five people, which might take about twice as long (although likely less than that, since “new hotness” raids are in higher demand than “vanilla” dungeons), but shouldn’t take anywhere near as long as trying to organize a current raid party from scratch that stands any chance of passing it.

The problem is that you’re not willing to put in the dedication and time to find 9 others and then train together and improve together. Like everyone else did.

Why should some do this and others be handed out easier ways?
Why is it so hard to form a static?

Ohoni.6057:

If you want a ‘non-toxic’ raiding environment all you have to do is get nine friends.

Just friends you’re prepared to lose.

Really? Then those aren’t really your friends are they?

My first core group started from scratch – we had one guy who knew most of the stuff that we had to do and he taught us. We stuck together – even though we each wiped the group several times with our mistakes. Everyone knew – but we stuck together – improved and became a good team that cleared fast and consistent.

If your friends aren’t willing to do this and you’ll “lose them” because of a few wipes – I suggest finding better “friends”.

Harper.4173:

If your friends aren’t willing to do this and you’ll “lose them” because of a few wipes – I suggest finding better “friends”.

yeah that’s more or less it

if your friends are willing to stop being your friends because you give them a bit of criticism or because you can’t clear a raid together you need better taste in people

Why do ppl keep classifying casuals as lazy kittens. I always though being casual means you simply don’t play the game a lot

There are multiple definitions of “casual.” It’s best described by a 4-way axis. Think of the left to right axis as “challenge,” and the down-up axis as “time.” Challenge hardcores like punishingly difficult content, challenge casuals like relatively brainless content. Time hardcores will spend many hours per day playing, time casuals will only spend a little time playing.

It’s possible to fall anywhere in that spectrum, from people who only want to play an hour a week but want to really have their face melted during that time, to people who will play 12 hours a day but want it to be fairly casual that entire time, or vice-versa.

Raids can pose difficulties to casuals of both groups, as they are more challenging than challenge-casuals would enjoy, and can also take up a lot of time that time-casuals might want to spend elsewhere. An easy mode would help resolve both of these issues for these players.

You want everything handed to you – but you forget this is an MMO.

Anyone who starts an argument with “this is an MMO” has already lost it. MMOs are anything to everyone. There is no right or wrong to an MMO. If someone says that they want something, "this is an MMO is never an valid reason why they should not have it. Specifically to GW2, GW2 never had 10-man premade content before this, and players were happy with that for three years. To say that they should be happy with it now because “this is an MMO” is a bit ridiculous.

access to raid rewards through non-raid means. Why? Why would they do this?

So that people who don’t want to raid, but do want that particular reward, will have some alternate method of earning it.

The rewards they put in RAIDS were put there to be obtained through RAID means. That’s why they are RAID rewards and not just generic rewards placed elsewhere in the game. Is it so hard to comprehend?

But they aren’t really “raid rewards,” there’s nothing inherently “raidy” about someone wearing Experimental armor. They chose to put the armor into raids, they can just as easily make them available someplace else, just as they chose to put dungeon armor in dungeons, but then later also into PvP tracks.

If they wanted people who don’t raid to have raid rewards you would have seen them for sale at other vendors for stuff like map currency and whatnot. They’re IN THE RAID because you’re supposed to get them BY RAIDING.

For the time being, and many of us are saying that in the future we’d like something different.

Their subjective barriers are THEIR Problem to overcome – not Anet’s and not mine or other players’.

ANet wants to keep players happy. If ANet removing those subjective barriers would make those players happy, it would be well worth the effort.

Oh – you don’t like that Anet made a choice that doesn’t cater to you? So sad.
I didn’t like that for the first 3 years of its life GW2 catered only to really really bad casual players. And I had to suck it up. Now they’re not only catering to that demographic – I dealt with it – I’m sure you’ll find a way to deal with it too.
I would like this to NOT be one such element – and I’ll put my money down to back up my claims too. I suggest others do the same.

So again, it would make you happy to keep other players sad. I’m not sure why ANet would want to honor that. Raiding is something that makes you happy, and you got it. I’m not trying to take that away from you. An easy mode raid is something that would make me happy, I don’t understand why you feel it would be just to stand in the way of that.

The problem is that you’re not willing to put in the dedication and time to find 9 others and then train together and improve together. Like everyone else did.

Yes, and the solution to that problem would be to no longer require that.

Why should some do this and others be handed out easier ways?

Because some enjoy it while others do not. Everyone should be able to play how they enjoy.

Why is it so hard to form a static?

If there were not practical difficulties involved then we would not be having this conversation. Just because you can find a group that works for you does not mean that it works for everyone. Just accept that it does not work for everyone and move on with the discussion understanding that.

if your friends are willing to stop being your friends because you give them a bit of criticism or because you can’t clear a raid together you need better taste in people

So you would agree that a bit more goes into it than “If you want a ‘non-toxic’ raiding environment all you have to do is get nine friends.”

Ohoni.6057:

So you would agree that a bit more goes into it than “If you want a ‘non-toxic’ raiding environment all you have to do is get nine friends.”

no, i wouldn’t.

i said i wasn’t going to get bogged down here so i am outy. enjoy your brick walls guys

Ohoni.6057:

Anyone who starts an argument with “this is an MMO” has already lost it. MMOs are anything to everyone. There is no right or wrong to an MMO. If someone says that they want something, "this is an MMO is never an valid reason why they should not have it. Specifically to GW2, GW2 never had 10-man premade content before this, and players were happy with that for three years. To say that they should be happy with it now because “this is an MMO” is a bit ridiculous.

You’re wrong. By definition it’s an MMO – massive multiplayer – it’s not supposed to deliver a stellar single-player experience. Or to put it in another way – it’s not designed around the concept of catering to people that want to go at it solo. There are a lot of things that MMOs might mean to people – but this is a core concept of any MMO.
It is NOT a single-player experience.

I didn’t say that it’s an MMO in a generic way – the MMO nature specifically explains why he can’t have a strong single-player experience – there’s no dev incentive to push resources in that direction. There are already STELLAR single-player games out there that Anet just can’t compete with.

Also – what players were happy with that for 3 years? You?

So that people who don’t want to raid, but do want that particular reward, will have some alternate method of earning it.

But that’s not what should happen – the developers didn’t want this to be a thing. Otherwise this would be a thing already. Raids are for raiders – and so are RAID rewards.
If you want the lore – go ahead – there are many means to get them – but without putting in the time and effort then you shouldn’t get the rewards regardless of how much you want them – because at the end of they day you don’t want them enough.

Ohoni.6057:

But they aren’t really “raid rewards,” there’s nothing inherently “raidy” about someone wearing Experimental armor.

There’s nothing inherently “anythingy” about any reward in this game – it’s arbitrary. Some skins got arbitrarily linked to WvW, others to PvP, others to areas of PvE. Some skins are now linked to Raids.

Ohoni.6057:

They chose to put the armor into raids, they can just as easily make them available someplace else, just as they chose to put dungeon armor in dungeons, but then later also into PvP tracks.

There’s a distinct difference between these – dungeons were meant to be much more accessible than raids. Raids aren’t supposed to be easy and easily accessible – and neither are the rewards.

Ohoni.6057:

For the time being, and many of us are saying that in the future we’d like something different.

And me and many others are saying we’d like things to stay the same.

Ohoni.6057:

ANet wants to keep players happy. If ANet removing those subjective barriers would make those players happy, it would be well worth the effort.

Except you don’t know that – you’re just saying things that make you feel better. But there’s no real proof that they even CAN do that. Or that it would be worth their time and effort. Or that it would even work.

People should look to themselves to solve THEIR OWN issues – not the developers. In 2016 everyone needs handsholding now don’t they?

Ohoni.6057:

So again, it would make you happy to keep other players sad. I’m not sure why ANet would want to honor that. Raiding is something that makes you happy, and you got it. I’m not trying to take that away from you. An easy mode raid is something that would make me happy, I don’t understand why you feel it would be just to stand in the way of that.

It wouldn’t make me happy or sad or anything. I don’t care what others do – they chose to make themselves sad because they refuse to change, adapt, improve or strive for something.
Instead they flood the forums with cries of “pls Anet give me give me”. I just don’t want things devalued because people are asking for handouts for something that is perfectly attainable if you are willing to attain it.

It’s not me making them sad – but rather their own incapacity to overcome their self-imposed limitations.

Ohoni.6057:

Raiding is something that makes you happy, and you got it. I’m not trying to take that away from you. An easy mode raid is something that would make me happy, I don’t understand why you feel it would be just to stand in the way of that.

Because an easy mode to raids makes ME unhappy – the same way a hard mode to dungeons was what made “casuals” unhappy every time me or others suggested it.
The same way Raids make some “casuals” unhappy to the point they flood the forums with “abandon raids” and “kill the elitist 1%”.

An easy mode to raids WITH easy loot is what is going to devalue the meaning behind the raid gear we currently have. Some raid items ACTUALLY MEAN SOMETHING right now. They mean you’re either of a certain skill level or at least very rich.
With “ezPzlemonsqueezy” mode that will all go away.

Ohoni.6057:

Yes, and the solution to that problem would be to no longer require that.

My problem is that I have to play and work towards legendary armor – but by your logic I can just spam the forums with QQ and as you put it " the solution to that problem would be to no longer require that".

If you can have things handed out to you – why not me? Why not everyone? Why should we have to play the game when Anet can make it so that it’s no longer required – right?

Ohoni.6057:

Because some enjoy it while others do not. Everyone should be able to play how they enjoy.

And what’s keeping you from playing how you enjoy? What If I enjoy playing WvW but nobody on my server does – shouldn’t Anet make it so that I can solo zergs by myself? Because that’s what I enjoy?

If you enjoy raiding – then raid.
If you don’t enjoy raiding – don’t raid. It is that simple. How is anyone forcing you to do something you don’t enjoy?

Ohoni.6057:

If there were not practical difficulties involved then we would not be having this conversation. Just because you can find a group that works for you does not mean that it works for everyone.

It boggles my mind that you’re like this. Everything in life has “practical difficulties”. Get it? Everything.
Humans are built do ADAPT and COPE with difficulty- meeting it and overcoming it through trial, effort and personal improvement.
Do you think that “I can find a group that works for me” easily? No – I couldn’t. But I found a group because I tried and worked towards it. Why can’t others? Why can I and not others? What’s holding them back except their own reluctance to do it instead of asking to be taken along and having their problems fixed by others?

Ohoni.6057:

Just accept that it does not work for everyone and move on with the discussion understanding that.

Just accept that it’s EVERYONE’s individual task to find what works for them. And if they can find a solution than they’ll get their problem fixed. And if they can’t then they can’t and they won’t be able to raid. IT’s that simple.
If you can make the cut you make the cut and if you can’t you can’t. Nobody is special.

Just accept this and move on with the discussion after you’ve understood it.

So you would agree that a bit more goes into it than “If you want a ‘non-toxic’ raiding environment all you have to do is get nine friends.”

This is complete BS.
The first static I was with I didn’t even know that well until we started raiding- most of us met there for the first time and didn’t know each other beforehand – we became friends as we raided together and banded together closely because of the experience.

But then again – we were all there to improve, learn and not leech off one another. We came in with a constructive attitude of “we’re bad – let’s get good together” – and we were in game practicing – not whining on the forums.

Harper.4173:

- not whining on the forums.

Oh the irony

I’m not reading 3 pages of what may very well just be bickering to determine if this has been said or not, so apologies if it’s been mentioned.

We do not know how the story in raids will actually intertwine with the ls3, it has been said explicitly by devs that raiding will not be required to understand ls3. For all we know the pact members we save in wing 1 could be in ls3 explaining to you what they have seen and what is going on in the wing. We toted Glenna through enough of the wing that she has seen and researched everything that there is to look at and it could be her that ls3 talks to about white mantle events.

It would be no different to Taimi saying that “Hey while you were gone I discovered all of this stuff, here you go”. Glenna is the perfect NPC to relay all of the raid story to a broader audience. For example “how do we know the white mantle is coming back?” to which Glenna could reply “I was with a Pact squad that uncovered their plans, here is what we know”. Boom perfect, no need to nerf the content and everyone gets the story.

tl;dr Until we get ls3 and know 100% how exactly the raid story ties into ls3 there is literally no reason to conclude that the raid story is an absolute must in order to understand things.

Ohoni your arguments don’t revolve around the story, every argument you put forth is about the reward, if you make content easier and provide the same reward it devalues what others did for it since you put less effort, again the story is not gated anyone can go into a cleared instance an experience the story, he boss fights have no special cutscenes, no special dialog. Raids were not designed for everyone, the rewards are set forth for those that are willing to learn the encounters as they are and to achieve them.

You don’t want to enjoy the content you just want the shiny at the end I have seen. You in these forums and that’s the main thing that pops up, if others put in more effort they should be rewarded as such.

Yes different game modes should get a different Legendary Armor, that is of similar difficulty respective to the game mode, WvW should be the first to get this do to them not having any real rewards in that category.

Ohoni.6057:

And that may work for you, but I have no interest in it. I want to just log in and have fun, I do not want to “train” to play a game.

So do it. There’s nothing that stops you from doing so.

We do not know how the story in raids will actually intertwine with the ls3, it has been said explicitly by devs that raiding will not be required to understand ls3.

This is true, but not especially relevant. Whether the story intertwines with the Living Story is completely irrelevant. It is still in the game, it still covers lore of the game world, it is still important to people who care about the game and its lore.

We toted Glenna through enough of the wing that she has seen and researched everything that there is to look at and it could be her that ls3 talks to about white mantle events.

Having an NPC explain the raid in text boxes is no different than watching let’s plays on Youtube. I want to actually EXPERIENCE the content, I just want to do so in a reduced challenge manner, just as someone might want to experience the Colossus Fractal, but not want to do it on Fractal level 50+.

Ohoni your arguments don’t revolve around the story, every argument you put forth is about the reward,

It really depends on who and what I’m responding to at the time. Say something about the story, I’ll respond about the story. Say something about the rewards, I’ll respond about the rewards. I genuinely do care about both, and want both to be resolved in some manner. It would be acceptable for each to be resolved separately, but I still think that resolving them both together is the simpler method.

if you make content easier and provide the same reward it devalues what others did for it since you put less effort,

And again, I’m not asking for the same rewards for less effort. I’m asking for the same rewards for MORE effort, since the alternatives would require running the content many more times over than just clearing hard mode version.

Raids were not designed for everyone, the rewards are set forth for those that are willing to learn the encounters as they are and to achieve them.

And I’m requesting that they change all that to make it more suitable to a wider audience.

You don’t want to enjoy the content you just want the shiny at the end I have seen.

Both, although I honestly don’t see what difference it would make if I did only want one or the other, it’s still a valid request.

Yes different game modes should get a different Legendary Armor, that is of similar difficulty respective to the game mode, WvW should be the first to get this do to them not having any real rewards in that category.

Given the time it takes them to get this stuff out, I would hate to see them release alternatives one mode at a time, with years between them. They should release them simultaneously for all modes, PvP, PvE, and WvW. One thing players need to keep in mind is that there is no particular reason for them to develop for all three modes evenly. Each mode should be developed to the extent that players actually play it. If a given mode is only played by a small portion of the community, then it is not equally deserving of new content as other more populous areas of the game.

So do it. There’s nothing that stops you from doing so.

I hate having to repeat myself but find that I often have to: “Now this leaves me with two alternatives at the moment, “raid anyway,” which I will never enjoy, or “never get Envoy armor and never experience the Forsaken Thicket content,” which I would also not enjoy. I’m asking for an alternative to either option, one that allows me to play the raid content at a lower challenge level, similar but less likely to wipe, and work towards Envoy armor as well.”

Ohoni.6057:

We do not know how the story in raids will actually intertwine with the ls3, it has been said explicitly by devs that raiding will not be required to understand ls3.

This is true, but not especially relevant. Whether the story intertwines with the Living Story is completely irrelevant. It is still in the game, it still covers lore of the game world, it is still important to people who care about the game and its lore.

We toted Glenna through enough of the wing that she has seen and researched everything that there is to look at and it could be her that ls3 talks to about white mantle events.

Having an NPC explain the raid in text boxes is no different than watching let’s plays on Youtube. I want to actually EXPERIENCE the content, I just want to do so in a reduced challenge manner, just as someone might want to experience the Colossus Fractal, but not want to do it on Fractal level 50+.

You realize the fights themselves have very little to do with the lore aside from random bits of dialogue they scream at you and has a lot to do with the “text boxes” ie notes scattered around the areas.

EDIT: I forgot that for all we know we could get an NPC like Glenna show people a cutscene that summarizes the entirety of the raid story.

Ohoni.6057:

And I don’t particularly care for a stellar single player experience, although this game does contain dozens of single player story chapters. But more often, people say “this is an MMO” to justify 5-10 man instance content, and that isn’t any more “an MMO” thing than single player content, that’s just party content. MMO does stand for massively mutliplayer, so if you’re going to pull “it’s an MMO so. . .” on us, then the ONLY content in the game worthy of being in an MMO would be open world bosses and Dragon Stand.

What I pointed out is that saying “I have difficulty interacting with parties and others” is not an excuse you should be hiding behind if you’re choosing to play an MMO.
When I pointed out you can have someone open a cleared instance the response was “I don’t do well with parties” – well guess what – this is AN MMO. You didn’t think you’d be going to have to interact with others to get stuff done in an MMO?

That’s my point. People have absurd expectations.

I’m not in favor of a solo version of the raids, although it would be better than nothing. My ideal would still be multiplayer, it would just be casual multiplayer, more in the general spirit of GW2, where you can group up with people, run the encounter, and largely not get in anyone’s way.

The general spirit of GW2? Like you’re the one who knows what it is. Wow.

Ohoni.6057:

Presumably hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, otherwise this game would have went the way of Wildstar. For all the preposterous whinging about “this game is too baby easy, I’m totally quitting!!!,” this game has continued to have a fairly high population for an MMO over the past three years, and has only started to slow a bit after the inclusion of raids.

You sure like pulling numbers out of your hat don’t you? why not billions?
I was unhappy with the state of the game yet I stuck with it – that doesn’t mean you can count me up as part of your “hundreds of thousands”.
Stop making things up. Especially numbers.

Ohoni.6057:

and has only started to slow a bit after the inclusion of raids.

You sure like to skew things in your favor don’t you?
You don’t think it has anything to do with HoT underdelivering massively – upsetting both casuals and hardcore players – not even delivering a lot of the advertised content on day 1 of release and cancelling legendary weapons?

I’m sure it must be the raids – not the dozen things that were utterly despised and bashed about HoT – like the poor and short story, maps on a timer, bugs, map issues and so on.

Also where do you get your “population” figures from? Do you have access to some 3rd party statistics or just your imagination?

Ohoni.6057:

This game did not have raids for three years. If you continued playing GW2 that entire time in the hopes that they would eventually get around to raiding then you have way more patience than should be expected of anyone.

Yes I do – your point?
I kept playing hoping for hardcore content – Raids, elite areas -whatever you want to call it. Many did the same – many have come back because of this. If I were you I’d be all up saying “hundreds of millions have come back because of raids”. Because making things up is fun.

Ohoni.6057:

But that argument could also be applied to raids. If the developers had wanted raids, we would have had them at launch. The same applies to any number of features added to or removed from the game over time. All of these features were things that “the developers didn’t want to be a thing. . . until they did.”

If you actually bothered to do your research you’d find out that the developers had always intended to have hardcore content in the game – something akin to raids. It was just that they were incapable of making it happen and grossly underestimated their good players while balancing these encounters against “everyone else in the middle”.
That’s why high-level fractals and explorable dungeons – which were intended to fill that raid niche at least partly were such a failure at being hardcore content.

Look this stuff up – it’s out there for your to learn. Story mode dungeons were supposed to be the “easy mode” while explorable was supposed to be hard.

This game was never designed to be without hardcore content – it was just the developers’ incapacity to implement it properly that meant we had to wait 3 years.

Ohoni.6057:

Exactly my point. So there’s absolutely nothing stopping them from also arbitrarily linking the same rewards to OTHER content, as they arbitrarily linked dungeon and HoT map rewards to PvP and WvW reward tracks, or linked previous LW event rewards to Laurel vendors, or taken previously drop-only Precursors and opened crafting tracks, or various other places where they have taken items previously earned one way, and opened up new avenues to earn them.

Except the fact that just because they CAN do it doesn’t mean they SHOULD do it. They can do ANYTHING with the game – give everyone 1000 gold, precursors, whatnot.
I was pointing out that just because you don’t see a reason why rewards should stay locked and linked to raids doesn’t mean they should un-link them – even if the link between THOSE rewards and raids is arbitrary.

Ohoni.6057:

Sometimes people who like raids insist that dungeons were originally intended to be as difficult as raids, but they just never turned out that way. I’m not sure about that, but it’s irrelevant, if dungeons are so accessible then PvPers could do them too, they wouldn’t need reward tracks. But alternative methods are good, because they allow people to play how they want and still work towards the rewards they want. I still hope that they add PvE reward tracks soon.

I’ve explained this before – dungeons were designed with the idea of having two modes – story and explorable. Story was supposed to be easy. Explorable was supposed to be harder – I doubt they were looking for raid-tier difficulty BUT they did intend for it to be hardcore content.
The problem was they were incapable of implementing it right – mostly because of their “everyone is welcome” all-inclusive attitude which meant trying to balance against really really bad players.

The PvP reward tracks were added because PvE and PvP skins were merged. That meant that playing PvE all day you could unlock PvP skins but not the other way around.
Still – these are NOT prestiege skins or “higher-end” PvE skins that were added.
Do you see FOTM weapons in a PvP track? Or the legendary FOTM backpiece? Or Teq weapons?

High and Higher-end PvE skins remain exclusive to PvE – just like the exclusive PvP backpiece and armor remains exclusive to PvP.

Get the picture?

Ohoni.6057:

But alternative methods are good, because they allow people to play how they want and still work towards the rewards they want. I still hope that they add PvE reward tracks soon.

I partially agree with this – people should play how they want BUT at a high skill level for high skill rewards.

If you want Raid items from PvP – considering raids are top-tier PVE content – you should be at least legendary or higher in PvP to be able to obtain such items.

Is it an alternate means of obtaining? Sure. But it should require just as much skill and dedication

Ohoni.6057:

But you have to understand that this is not an equivalent position. You are happy with what you have now. Nobody is suggesting taking anything away from you. Other people are not happy with what we have now. Our receiving what we want is not harming you in any way. You don’t have any justification to demand that we not get what we want.

Yes – yes you are. Those that are not happy now were happy before. Now the wheel turns -but the sad thing is this.
Before hardcore players HAD no hardcore content – regardless of what we did there was no way of adapting in any way to fill that need.

Right now casual players CAN if they so choose to improve and step up to enjoy raids.

You keep trying to weasel the “our receiving what we want does not harm you” but it does. It does because it devalues our rewards.

The items I have from raids are a STATEMENT – they look cool and tell something about my skill, dedication and willingness to commit to this game and to my raid team.
If others get them easier – that statement is eroded and disappears. And that is taking something away from me.

There above is my justification. Rarity matters – statements matter. And I wouldn’t even care as much about rarity – I wouldn’t mind if everyone had the raid loot that I have provided they had the skill and dedication and put in just as much work as me to get them – because if they did that means they earned them. Just like me – so the statement that loot makes about me – and all the others remains valid and true.

Ohoni.6057:

It’s a game, and everyone wants to enjoy the game. If I tell you that I would never enjoy playing the existing raids, then you just have to accept that this is true, and that there is nothing either of us could possibly do about that. If I tell you that I would enjoy easy mode raids then you also just have to accept that this is true and unalterable. Your only choice in the matter is whether you care that I enjoy the game mode or not. There is nothing about this issue that either of us has any capacity to “solve,” only ANet can choose to solve it.

The problem is this. If I tell you that I don’t enjoy the WvW formata under its current form that’s true and unalterable. But I understand others do – and I’m not going to ask for a change because I want to be “special” and need to be catered to.

Also when you tell me you can’t enjoy raids currently I won’t accept that as completely set is stone.
Alternatively I don’t believe you have any right to make strong statements like

I would enjoy easy mode raids then you also just have to accept that this is true and unalterable.

because no such mode exists and you have no idea what it would be like. You’re either desperate to make your point or lying. You can’t enjoy something that doesn’t exist and has not set form or format.

Ohoni.6057:

Your only choice in the matter is whether you care that I enjoy the game mode or not. There is nothing about this issue that either of us has any capacity to “solve,” only ANet can choose to solve it.

I don’t care. And that’s because you can enjoy the game without raids – just like I enjoyed the game for 3 years without any real “hardcore content”. If I could do it – so can you.
And if you can’t – tough luck.
Also – you don’t care about how I enjoy the game – yet somehow expect me to care about your enjoyment – even if it means giving up mine.

Ohoni.6057:

I don’t recall any discussion of hard mode raids, but I don’t see what the problem would be so long as you weren’t asking for exclusive shineys for completing it. I don’t see how giving people content they want is at all an issue, so long as it does not block off any content or rewards from anyone.

There were discussions of hardcore dungeon modes – with associated higher rewards and more exclusive rewards.

You just don’t really get that this “blocking” is normal and natural. People’s options for obtaining things expand and open up as their knowledge and skill in the game grow. As they become more dedicated and competent. It’s called improving and progressing. And this concept of progression is at the core of every MMO game out there – including GW2.

Ohoni.6057:

Which wouldn’t be an issue IF there was a valid alternative. Right now the existence of raids IS a problem for lots of players because it DOES lock out content and rewards. If raids did not exist at all then Legendary armor would be awarded through some other mechanism, and the story content and environments of the raids would have appeared in a more digestible form. An easy mode raid would cover those concerns though.

Except the story of the raid IS out in a more digestible form – it is called a cleared instance.
And this discussion was started about that issue – not legendary armor.

Ohoni.6057:

Nobody is suggesting that you wouldn’t have to play the game. The alternatives suggested would take more work than the current methods, they would just be less challenging and/or have more varieties of experiences. They would still provide motivation to play the game, they would just be providing it to players who aren’t currently motivated by the existing raids.

Except this is the first time you’ve mentioned it would take more work. And it wouldn’t. It would take more time – it would take less effort but more time.
Or the same amount of time – depending on how you look at it. Because it took a lot of wipes to get to clear current raids consistently – while your “easy mode” could probably be beaten without wipes or difficulty.

Ohoni.6057:

I do not, and will never enjoy the current raids, the challenge level they are currently set at. I would enjoy an easier version of the raid, less likely to result in a wipe. Again, I’m not asking you to understand why this is so, but you do have to accept it as a true fact. Now this leaves me with two alternatives at the moment, “raid anyway,” which I will never enjoy, or “never get Envoy armor and never experience the Forsaken Thicket content,” which I would also not enjoy. I’m asking for an alternative to either option, one that allows me to play the raid content at a lower challenge level, similar but less likely to wipe, and work towards Envoy armor as well.

Then don’t raid.
You have no idea whether or not you would enjoy an “easier raid” because no concept of it exists. What if it isn’t easy enough for you? What if it’s solo content?
What if it’s a quick time-event based thing?

Ohoni.6057:

Now this leaves me with two alternatives at the moment, “raid anyway,” which I will never enjoy, or “never get Envoy armor and never experience the Forsaken Thicket content,” which I would also not enjoy. I’m asking for an alternative to either option, one that allows me to play the raid content at a lower challenge level, similar but less likely to wipe, and work towards Envoy armor as well.

This is really easy – find out which one you would enjoy less and then make a decision. Like everybody else.
I was met with a similar decision too:

I despise crafting – and I despise HoT maps – but for the new legendary armor you have to get 6 gifts of craftsmanship – which you have to get with Provisioner tokens – which you have to craft items to trade for. And you have to do this in the HoT Maps.
So I sat there and thought – what do I want more – the armor or not to touch crafting and HoT – I answered my question and then promptly started on my way to getting my 300 tokens for my armor.

Without having to get on the forums and ask Anet for a “fun alternative for me” because I can’t handle the game.

Same goes for the necessary HoT map materials. I don’t want to farm them – I dislike the hot maps – but I did farm them. I didn’t QQ about wanting an “easier, non-HoT way of getting them” – I just got them.
Had it been too much of a problem for me to get them I would have just not gotten them -fully aware that it would have been MY decision that prevented me from getting legendary armor – and nobody’s fault but mine.

Ohoni.6057:

This is not life. This is an entertainment product. If I’m meant to “adapt and cope” with content that I do not enjoy, then I’d better be getting paid at the very least minimum wage to do it. If I’m the one paying, then I’m sorry, I’m not in the whips and chains crowd and I’m not paying for self abuse. I want to enjoy myself, and I’m providing a blueprint as to how that can be achieved.

First and foremost – adapting and coping are a universal component of human existence – you can’t wish it away just because “this is an entertainment product” – it still exists in reality and must obey the laws of that reality.

The payment you get for doing the content you don’t enjoy is the reward that you enjoy at the end of it. That’s it.
You want legendary armor? Just like I wrote above you’re going to have to do some stuff you dislike – but if you do you get the armor. If you don’t you don’t get the armor.
Is it so hard to understand?
You can’t do everything you want all the time and do only that – regardless of the fact that this is “an entertainment product”.

Ohoni.6057:

If I’m the one paying, then I’m sorry, I’m not in the whips and chains crowd and I’m not paying for self abuse. I want to enjoy myself, and I’m providing a blueprint as to how that can be achieved.

So then stop paying and move on. It’s that simple. You don’t own the game – or its development directions.
You paid for a product – if you don’t like it – tough luck. You made an informed decision when you bought it. Or maybe you didn’t. Either way – this game doesn’t have a subscription fee – you’re not being forced to continuously push money Anet’s way to keep playing.
You can stop at any time.

Ohoni.6057:

And that may work for you, but I have no interest in it. I want to just log in and have fun, I do not want to “train” to play a game.

Then expect to never reach those rewards that were put there for the people who do “train to play a game”.

This game rewards players differently based on how much they invest in it.
Look at daily log-in rewards – you log in for 30 days straight – you get 30 days worth of rewards.
You log in for 5 days – you get 5 days worth of rewards.

It’s the same thing really.
If you don’t want to play the game with others cooperatively and improve in order to beat the content designed to be beaten by the application of this process then expect not to beat it and make your peace with that.

You realize the fights themselves have very little to do with the lore aside from random bits of dialogue they scream at you and has a lot to do with the “text boxes” ie notes scattered around the areas.

The fights are a part of the experience. The “lore” is the story of what happens to the player, not just the things you read. What you’re saying is that if you took, say, Captain America: Civil War, and removed every scene that included any action, that it would still be “pretty much the same thing.”

I mean, maybe that would be true for you, I don’t know, but just understand that it is not true for me.

What I pointed out is that saying “I have difficulty interacting with parties and others” is not an excuse you should be hiding behind if you’re choosing to play an MMO.

It really depends. People can have difficulty interacting with others and still fully enjoy the majority of the content in GW2. Most of it can be done essentially treating the other players as NPCs, IF that is how you feel comfortable playing. You really don’t need to chat or coordinate with other players to do most of the content. Now plenty of players, myself included, enjoy having conversations with people, but there shouldn’t be any stigma attached to players who are uncomfortable doing so. MMOs are great for helping to bridge social gaps, but pressuring people into it does not help.

You didn’t think you’d be going to have to interact with others to get stuff done in an MMO?

That’s my point. People have absurd expectations.

And if this were three years ago, you might have a point. But raids weren’t added until just recently and the game’s got on fine without them, so it stands to reason that plenty of players could have spent the last three years enjoying how GW2 was, and not wanting the sort of “enhanced teamwork” that you insist they should have expected all along.

The general spirit of GW2? Like you’re the one who knows what it is. Wow.

Yes.

You sure like pulling numbers out of your hat don’t you? why not billions?

Because they’ve only sold a few million copies, so it’s likely lower than that. I’m basing my estimate on copies sold, profit figures, general participation in the game and social media, I think it’s fair to assume that the number of relatively active players around HoT’s launch was above 100K, but likely less than three million or so.

Also where do you get your “population” figures from? Do you have access to some 3rd party statistics or just your imagination?

I think you’d have a hard time arguing that the game’s active population is as high as it was when HoT launched. How much that population has shifted, we don’t really know, but we can see the forest, even if we can’t count the trees.

If you actually bothered to do your research you’d find out that the developers had always intended to have hardcore content in the game – something akin to raids. It was just that they were incapable of making it happen and grossly underestimated their good players while balancing these encounters against “everyone else in the middle”.
That’s why high-level fractals and explorable dungeons – which were intended to fill that raid niche at least partly were such a failure at being hardcore content.

But just in your previous post you claimed that raids were supposed to be ultra-hardcore special snowflake rewards content that could never be offered through reward tracks unlike those super-casual dungeons. Which is it?

Except the fact that just because they CAN do it doesn’t mean they SHOULD do it. They can do ANYTHING with the game – give everyone 1000 gold, precursors, whatnot.

Sure, and if you build a man out of straw it’s easier to attack than an actual human opponent.

Do you see FOTM weapons in a PvP track? Or the legendary FOTM backpiece? Or Teq weapons?

Not yet, but they do include all the HoT map weapons and armor, which are no harder to acquire. I wouldn’t be at all shocked or displeased if those other items were added at a later date.

High and Higher-end PvE skins remain exclusive to PvE – just like the exclusive PvP backpiece and armor remains exclusive to PvP.

We’ll see what they do with The Ascension in future. I have a feeling that the “other way to earn it if you miss out this season” might not be just another PvP method. In any case, earning the Ascension takes WAY less practical ability than earning Envoy armor.

I partially agree with this – people should play how they want BUT at a high skill level for high skill rewards.

but there’s no such thing as “high skill rewards.” There are just rewards that, for the time being, are gated behind high skill content. Nothing says that this needs to remain the case. Gating things behind high skill only means that plenty of players will miss out, and there’s nothing positive about that.

Is it an alternate means of obtaining? Sure. But it should require just as much skill and dedication

There should be alternatives. If there is a 20ft high platform, sure, you can have a rope to climb onto it, but you should also have stairs for those without the upper body strength to use the rope, and also a ramp for those without the leg strength to make it up the stairs. The ramp is a longer path around, but it would get you there eventually. Dedication can be an appropriate substitution for skill.

Before hardcore players HAD no hardcore content – regardless of what we did there was no way of adapting in any way to fill that need.

Right now casual players CAN if they so choose to improve and step up to enjoy raids.

No, you’re confusing capability with enjoyment. That’s utter nonsense. I could “step up” and get better at raids, I could even eventually clear raids. That should not be confused with enjoying raids, I would NEVER enjoy raids at their current difficulty level, under any circumstances. To say that I could “just step up and enjoy raids” is equivalent to me telling you that you could “just step up and enjoy farming moas in Queensdale.” If you don’t enjoy something, you don’t enjoy it.

The items I have from raids are a STATEMENT – they look cool and tell something about my skill, dedication and willingness to commit to this game and to my raid team.

You do not deserve to make a statement if it comes at the expense of others having the armor they want. If you want to make a statement without costing people armor options, that’s all well and good, but you wanting to make a statement is no excuse to deny others the armor they want. If you want a fancy title, or a nametag flair, or some non-skin method of showing off what you’re digitally swinging with, then that’s all well and good, but it’s no excuse to deny other players armor that they would enjoy having.

The problem is this. If I tell you that I don’t enjoy the WvW formata under its current form that’s true and unalterable. But I understand others do – and I’m not going to ask for a change because I want to be “special” and need to be catered to.

But if there is a reasonable change they could make, that would cause you to enjoy it (and presumably many others), and that wouldn’t harm the experience for any of the existing WvW players, then maybe they should consider it. If they can add more happy players to the mode, it would be to everyone’s overall benefit.

I would enjoy easy mode raids then you also just have to accept that this is true and unalterable.

because no such mode exists and you have no idea what it would be like. You’re either desperate to make your point or lying. You can’t enjoy something that doesn’t exist and has not set form or format.

Clearly when I say “I would enjoy easy mode raids,” I mean “if they implemented them vaguely along the lines I’m discussing.” Obviously they could make a complete mess of them and I would not enjoy that, but from what I have seen of the raids, if they implemented that existing content, but using standard tuning techniques they’ve used on other content to reduce the challenge level, I would enjoy that experience.

edit: sorry, was in a bit of a hurry and left in a bad tag.

Also – you don’t care about how I enjoy the game – yet somehow expect me to care about your enjoyment – even if it means giving up mine.

I care about your enjoyment, and I would fight for your enjoyment so long as it doesn’t come at others expense. But if you can only be happy in having something because other people do not, then I’m sorry, I cannot support that, and do not find it a justifiable equivalency to what I’m asking.

As they become more dedicated and competent. It’s called improving and progressing. And this concept of progression is at the core of every MMO game out there – including GW2.

You keep claiming that you’ve been playing the game this entire time, and yet somehow completely missed everything that it’s about. GW2 is not a treadmill like other MMOs, it is designed to have a relatively flat curve, that once you hit 80 you can do pretty much anything you like, and it’s almost all equivalent.

Except this is the first time you’ve mentioned it would take more work. And it wouldn’t. It would take more time – it would take less effort but more time.

A pure time gate is more time. A repetition gate is more time and effort. If you have ten buckets that contain five bricks each, then it would only take ten trips, over a given amount of time, to carry them 50ft away. But if you were not strong enough to lift five bricks at once, then you could remove each brick and carry each individually, and it would take you five times as many trips, and nearly five times as long, five times the effort, but it would be manageable when the initial task might not be for you. It would be easier, but it would take as much work.

I really don’t see the need to do this for the story. While the raid story is definitely interesting, it’s not long and could fit into a single story instance. In fact the way it’s told right now is to minimize the impact on the raiding experience and totally optional. For a LS episode they could make it much more engaging story-wise. It’s not like it’s gonna have a lot of replay value anyway so why waste all that time creating it.

How do the people that are ‘missing out on the story’ feel about dungeons? While dungeons are easier to complete, they provide barriers that are similar to those encountered when raiding. A single dungeon provides more story than all of the raid wings combined do. I suppose this isn’t a problem because you can get all the dungeon rewards by playing pvp.

(-a-)Then don’t raid.
(-b-) You have no idea whether or not you would enjoy an “easier raid” because no concept of it exists. (-c-) What if it isn’t easy enough for you? (-d-) What if it’s solo content? (-e-)What if it’s a quick time-event based thing?

-a-. but then we’re back to “Now this leaves me with two alternatives at the moment, “raid anyway,” which I will never enjoy, or “never get Envoy armor and never experience the Forsaken Thicket content,” which I would also not enjoy. I’m asking for an alternative to either option, one that allows me to play the raid content at a lower challenge level, similar but less likely to wipe, and work towards Envoy armor as well.”

-b-. I certainly can’t promise anything, but I have a general idea in mind that is not out of step with similar “easy vs. hard” examples in the game. I can’t imagine it could be done worse than the existing raids if they’re actually trying to make it good, and I assume they’ll try to make it good.

-c-. I’m very far from the weakest player of this game. If they can fail to make it easy enough for my tastes then they would have made it way too hard to satisfy anyone who does not already do fine with the existing one, in which case they have failed to accomplish anything of value. They can then go back in and tweak it. It’s far more likely that they would make it easier than I’d need it to be than that they would bother trying and end up with something that is still too hard.

-d-. I’d play it. It’s not what I’m asking for, it wouldn’t be my ideal, but it would probably be fine, playable, engaging, better than the alternative of doing the existing raids.

-e-. I don’t see why it would be. That would seem a fantastic waste of resources to develop an entirely new game mode that nobody actually wants. Still probably better than the existing raid though.

This is really easy – find out which one you would enjoy less and then make a decision. Like everybody else.

That’s one way to do it, the defeatist attitude of “just give up, close your eyes and think of England,” but I’m no quitter. So instead I’m just going to push for a win/win scenario, where I can both enjoy the game AND get the content I want.

I despise crafting – and I despise HoT maps – but for the new legendary armor you have to get 6 gifts of craftsmanship – which you have to get with Provisioner tokens – which you have to craft items to trade for. And you have to do this in the HoT Maps.
So I sat there and thought – what do I want more – the armor or not to touch crafting and HoT – I answered my question and then promptly started on my way to getting my 300 tokens for my armor.

You’re making a rather preposterous false equivalency here. You can master every crafting process in the game in a fraction of the time that it takes to complete a single raid boss, and employing exactly zero actual skill. You might not love it, but it’s nowhere near the level of imposition.

Also, most if not all of that stuff can be found on the TP, and don’t you DARE try to compare buying something off the TP to buying a raid run, I know you want to.

Tsst.

Tsssst.

NO.

First and foremost – adapting and coping are a universal component of human existence – you can’t wish it away just because “this is an entertainment product” – it still exists in reality and must obey the laws of that reality.

Nope. Games are an entertainment product. If you have to “adapt and bope” for it outside of your comfort zone then it has failed to do its job.

You paid for a product – if you don’t like it – tough luck. You made an informed decision when you bought it. Or maybe you didn’t. Either way – this game doesn’t have a subscription fee – you’re not being forced to continuously push money Anet’s way to keep playing.
You can stop at any time.

Sure, but ANet doesn’t want me, or people like me, to stop, because there are more of us than there are of you. They want us to keep playing, they want us to keep buying their expansions and gem store stuff, and if they can accomplish that by making some modest changes to their product, then it is in their best interests to do so. I’m just giving them the roadmap, they have the choice to follow it, but they should.

Then expect to never reach those rewards that were put there for the people who do “train to play a game”.

Ooooooor, and this leads us right back around to the original topic here. . . spoiler warning!. . . . they could adapt the game so that I don’t have to train for things that I don’t want to train for.

This game rewards players differently based on how much they invest in it.
Look at daily log-in rewards – you log in for 30 days straight – you get 30 days worth of rewards.
You log in for 5 days – you get 5 days worth of rewards.

I’ve logged in for about 1400 days so far, how many do I need to log in to get Envoy armor? I may have missed the point you were making. . .

If you don’t want to play the game with others cooperatively and improve in order to beat the content designed to be beaten by the application of this process then expect not to beat it and make your peace with that.

Oooooooooooor, ask for an alternative to doing that, since it’s not something I would enjoy even remotely.

petyr baelish.9675:

How do the people that are ‘missing out on the story’ feel about dungeons? While dungeons are easier to complete, they provide barriers that are similar to those encountered when raiding. A single dungeon provides more story than all of the raid wings combined do. I suppose this isn’t a problem because you can get all the dungeon rewards by playing pvp.

well since we dont have only zerker or gtfo partys anymore in dungeons there are all welcome (any class combination can complete them), I would think anyone would be able to see those stories.

Cant remember any dungeon I wouldent be able to complete with a full ranger bearbow party.
Raids however aint the same, try to complete them with 10 bearbow rangers mate.

How do the people that are ‘missing out on the story’ feel about dungeons? While dungeons are easier to complete, they provide barriers that are similar to those encountered when raiding. A single dungeon provides more story than all of the raid wings combined do. I suppose this isn’t a problem because you can get all the dungeon rewards by playing pvp.

I don’t think any of this is accurate information. The raid contains more information than the dungeons, And there really aren’t any barriers to entry, you can throw out an LFG, need half as many people to join you, they can be any class they want, not know the content at all, and you’ll still do just fine.

I hadn’t done much dungeoning lately because I’d burned out on them years ago, but when they added daily raids I’ve started doing a few of those. When CM was the dungeon of the day a month or so back, I queued up for path 1 with four other people who’d never done it before, and I totally forgot how to do it, and we still managed it in less than a half hour with only one wipe and a few downs. If you can manage the same with Vale Guardian then I’ll concede the point. To sum up, the challenge is:

• Clear Vale Guardian
• Using a completely random LFG party
• NONE of whom have any experience with the encounter
• with absolutely no gearchecks or class-checks, come as you are
• half hour total time limit, one wipe allowed.

Let’s see how you do. This is open to anyone, btw.

If you’re bad you don’t deserve anything from raids period.

You already have the other 99% of the game you can enjoy and do stuff in while exerting almost no effort 11111111111.

Adding hypotheticals and stuff as a ‘challenge’ to us means nothing, we already did the challenge. We had pugs clear every boss (all 9!) with no experience (how do you think they get experience?), it takes many wipes but persistence pays off.

Just because you are bad doesn’t mean the rest of us who have pugged are bad too. We’ve had our fair share of fails but instead of posting about it and trying to change the game mode to suit our needs we realized we could you know, make friends and get a group together to raid while adding in more pugs who eventually also become friends.

I recall in the 3rd week VG came out I just joined a pug, no gear check, no questions asked and just yolo’d. First kill no wipes everybody was surprised.

There are so many training guilds out there now helping people get clears and get better yet there are so many of you posting here complaining, whinging, crying and hating on everything that doesn’t fit your narrative with regards to “elitist raids”. It’s almost comical if it wasn’t so sad how you yourself is the biggest obstacle to you raiding.

In my opinion the players that claim they want a story mode/easier raid in order to ‘experience the story’ are not being genuine. I think they just want easier access to the rewards, which they don’t deserve. Pretty much every poster that asks for an easy mode/story mode wants to sneak in some rewards for completion.

The players that truly care about the story (which is next to nothing, it’s just barely enough to give the raid instances a reason to exist in Tyria) will have caught up on it by now. Either by reading the wiki, watching a youtube video or entering a completed instance and reading the letters themselves.

For those who still claim they want to ‘experience the story’ without having to put in effort, a ‘story mode’ with 0 rewards would be the only option I’d be able to agree with. However, providing this would be a huge wast of development time for something that nobody will complete more than once.

On a side note:
-I think that anyone that managed to complete all of the arah explorable modes is capable of killing most raid bosses.
-If you think lfg raid requirements are too strict you can always make your own group with like minded people.
-Just because some comps are superior or some classes/builds are better at something does’t mean it’s the only way to go. Using meta will most likely make things much easier, but if class/build variety is important to you, I’m sure you can make it work. After all, multiple groups managed to clear raids with a variety of comps before the raid meta was properly developed.

Adding hypotheticals and stuff as a ‘challenge’ to us means nothing, we already did the challenge. We had pugs clear every boss (all 9!) with no experience (how do you think they get experience?), it takes many wipes but persistence pays off.

If they go through many wipes then they are no longer inexperienced. The challenge is to complete it in under 30 minutes and with only one wipe using an inexperienced and randomly coordinated group, not to take that group and spend hours and a hours refining strategies and training skills.

Just because you are bad doesn’t mean the rest of us who have pugged are bad too. We’ve had our fair share of fails but instead of posting about it and trying to change the game mode to suit our needs we realized we could you know, make friends and get a group together to raid while adding in more pugs who eventually also become friends.

I’ve “realized” that too, it’s no grand revelation, that’s just not something I’d rather do. You’d rather do those things, and that’s great, I’d rather ask ANet to make some changes to the game so that I (and many others) would enjoy it more. You do you, I’ll do me, and we’ll each be happy.

It’s almost comical if it wasn’t so sad how you yourself is the biggest obstacle to you raiding.

No, the biggest obstacle is the boss wiping the party. Me Myself isn’t really an obstacle at all.

Ohoni.6057:

How do the people that are ‘missing out on the story’ feel about dungeons? While dungeons are easier to complete, they provide barriers that are similar to those encountered when raiding. A single dungeon provides more story than all of the raid wings combined do. I suppose this isn’t a problem because you can get all the dungeon rewards by playing pvp.

I don’t think any of this is accurate information. The raid contains more information than the dungeons, And there really aren’t any barriers to entry, you can throw out an LFG, need half as many people to join you, they can be any class they want, not know the content at all, and you’ll still do just fine.

I hadn’t done much dungeoning lately because I’d burned out on them years ago, but when they added daily raids I’ve started doing a few of those. When CM was the dungeon of the day a month or so back, I queued up for path 1 with four other people who’d never done it before, and I totally forgot how to do it, and we still managed it in less than a half hour with only one wipe and a few downs. If you can manage the same with Vale Guardian then I’ll concede the point. To sum up, the challenge is:

• Clear Vale Guardian
• Using a completely random LFG party
• NONE of whom have any experience with the encounter
• with absolutely no gearchecks or class-checks, come as you are
• half hour total time limit, one wipe allowed.

Let’s see how you do. This is open to anyone, btw.

-I’d say each separate dungeon path has as much story as 1 raid wing.
-The barriers are similar, especially if you want to have a successful and pleasant run: you need to form a group; you need 1 assertive person that somewhat knows what’s going on and isn’t afraid to give directions; people need to be able to communicate and listen. Although you may be able to complete a dungeon with anything, having certain bases covered will significantly improve the run. I’d like to see a group of random noobs do ‘just fine’ in arah exp without any directions or a veteran soloing while they’re kittening around.
- Obviously there are some stricter requirements for raids compared to dungeons, some roles need to be covered but it isn’t nearly as strict as you make it out to be.
- The people that pug cleared wing 1 when it was first released did it exactly as you described, although some build/comp adjustments may have been needed.

FYI: When I’m talking about dungeons, I’m mainly referring to the harder ones (arah) and not just AC explorable. I’ve seen pugs take several hours to complete arah, or just give up after hours of trying to kill lupi.

In my opinion the players that claim they want a story mode/easier raid in order to ‘experience the story’ are not being genuine.

Your opinion is wrong, simple as that.

I think they just want easier access to the rewards, which they don’t deserve. Pretty much every poster that asks for an easy mode/story mode wants to sneak in some rewards for completion.

Well look, I’ve been very straight forward about this. To address your primary concern first, yes, of course I want the rewards, and yes, I think it would improve the game if they provided alternate methods for people to earn them. Nobody “deserves” rewards and certainly nobody doesn’t deserve them, every reward is a gift from the developers for playing their game. They attach the rewards to specific hoops, jump through the hoop, get the reward, and if they then choose to attach those rewards to other hoops intended for other people, then that’s fine too.

1. But back to the story mode, if they added a way for players to experience the content of the raids in a lower challenge manner, either single player story or easy mode group experience, and had ZERO rewards, I would play it. But I would only play it once.

2. If it had some access path to the Envoy armor, one that presumably would take longer and more repetitions than the current path, then I would play it as necessary to complete that collection.

3. If they did not have any access to Envoy armor or other desirable unique rewards, but did provide standard reward packages of gold, materials, salvage trash, etc. that added up to being equivalent to other activities in the game that required a similar amount of time and attention, dungeons for example, then I would probably run the content from time to time, and some people would be likely to run it fairly often as their way of farming.

Now the question is which of these things would be worth ANet’s time. Method 1, to me, seems like it would be a waste of their time. If they have to spend time on this, they would want players to repeat this content, and zero rewards would offer them no reason to do that. Option 3 might work well enough, it would be equivalent to dungeons in their prime, but would likely taper off after a while. I do think option 2 would offer the best bang for their buck, as well as not requiring them to implement some completely different manner of earning Envoy armor, so it’s the best of both worlds and has zero drawbacks. So yes, that is my recommendation, but any step in the right direction would be a good one.

For those who still claim they want to ‘experience the story’ without having to put in effort, a ‘story mode’ with 0 rewards would be the only option I’d be able to agree with.

That’s a pity, but it’s a good thing for all involved that your agreement is completely unnecessary.

-If you think lfg raid requirements are too strict you can always make your own group with like minded people.

And expect to complete it each boss in under 30 minutes with no more than a single wipe and no class/gear checking required? I think that’s a bit unlikely. I think the more likely result of that scenario is that the group does horribly, wastes several hours accomplishing nothing, and goes home disgruntled. What does that accomplish?

-Just because some comps are superior or some classes/builds are better at something does’t mean it’s the only way to go. Using meta will most likely make things much easier, but if class/build variety is important to you, I’m sure you can make it work. After all, multiple groups managed to clear raids with a variety of comps before the raid meta was properly developed.

Again, there is some flexibility, particularly for highly skilled and/or experienced players, but until that filters down to low skilled, low experience players it’s not really relevant to the problem at hand. It’s kind of like being in a gym, and that big swole guy walks up and starts offering tips that another really swole guy could use to trim up those last few ounces of fat, but to a really out of shape guy who just wants some light cardio and never intends to be a huge muscle-head.

-I’d say each separate dungeon path has as much story as 1 raid wing.

And again, I would disagree.

-The barriers are similar, especially if you want to have a successful and pleasant run: you need to form a group; you need 1 assertive person that somewhat knows what’s going on and isn’t afraid to give directions; people need to be able to communicate and listen. I’d like to see a group of random noobs do ‘just fine’ in arah exp without any directions or a veteran soloing while they’re kittening around.

Nope, not for dungeons. A simple zerg approach works just fine for most of them. I did Arah for the first time when it was the daily a couple months back, we wiped once on Lupi, almost no communication and then beat the rest of it. I imagine some of the other guys knew what they were doing but I just skimmed the wiki, and I was the last man standing against Lupi for about 20-30 seconds. It’s not remotely as hard as VG, much less Goreseval.

- Obviously there are some stricter requirements for raids compared to dungeons, some roles need to be covered but it isn’t nearly as strict as you make it out to be.

but it still requires farming for those goals. It’s back to oldschool “looking for Cleric” nonsense, instead of just being able to snag the first nine people to show up and Leroying it. That time spent is a barrier to entry for those on a short time budget.

- The people that pug cleared wing 1 when it was first released did it exactly as you described, although some build/comp adjustments may have been needed.

I imagine that if they had zero prior experience that it took them more than thirty minutes and one wipe on their first night.

FYI: When I’m talking about dungeons, I’m mainly referring to the harder ones (arah) and not just AC explorable.

I’m not.

petyr baelish.9675:

Ohoni.6057:

How do the people that are ‘missing out on the story’ feel about dungeons? While dungeons are easier to complete, they provide barriers that are similar to those encountered when raiding. A single dungeon provides more story than all of the raid wings combined do. I suppose this isn’t a problem because you can get all the dungeon rewards by playing pvp.

I don’t think any of this is accurate information. The raid contains more information than the dungeons, And there really aren’t any barriers to entry, you can throw out an LFG, need half as many people to join you, they can be any class they want, not know the content at all, and you’ll still do just fine.

I hadn’t done much dungeoning lately because I’d burned out on them years ago, but when they added daily raids I’ve started doing a few of those. When CM was the dungeon of the day a month or so back, I queued up for path 1 with four other people who’d never done it before, and I totally forgot how to do it, and we still managed it in less than a half hour with only one wipe and a few downs. If you can manage the same with Vale Guardian then I’ll concede the point. To sum up, the challenge is:

• Clear Vale Guardian
• Using a completely random LFG party
• NONE of whom have any experience with the encounter
• with absolutely no gearchecks or class-checks, come as you are
• half hour total time limit, one wipe allowed.

Let’s see how you do. This is open to anyone, btw.

-I’d say each separate dungeon path has as much story as 1 raid wing.
-The barriers are similar, especially if you want to have a successful and pleasant run: you need to form a group; you need 1 assertive person that somewhat knows what’s going on and isn’t afraid to give directions; people need to be able to communicate and listen. I’d like to see a group of random noobs do ‘just fine’ in arah exp without any directions or a veteran soloing while they’re kittening around.
- Obviously there are some stricter requirements for raids compared to dungeons, some roles need to be covered but it isn’t nearly as strict as you make it out to be.
- The people that pug cleared wing 1 when it was first released did it exactly as you described, although some build/comp adjustments may have been needed.

FYI: When I’m talking about dungeons, I’m mainly referring to the harder ones (arah) and not just AC explorable.

Sure Arah is abit harder dungeon then most of the others but any group comp can complete it.
You yourself stated now any group comp cant complete the raids so how are you able to draw a comparison bettwen the 2?

Tri wurm is probabely the only core gw2 fight that come even close and thats a hot mess for random pugs aswell

Legendary envoy armor is a prestige item for dedicated raiders. Making it accessible to players that aren’t interested in the raiding experience (which includes the difficulty) is pretty absurd and diminishes the achievements of those that got it the ‘hard’ way. I’m not a fan of the ‘everybody is a winner’ ideology. People that put in time, effort and skill deserve to be rewarded for it. If you’re unwilling/unable to do all 3, you’re not entitled to the reward and raids are not the content for you.

Dungeons have a larger story line than raids, this is not a matter of opinion but a fact.

When you compare things to each other, you address the similarities between them, you’re not trying to prove that both are the same. In my opinion there are plenty of similarities between dungeons and raids worth mentioning, which I’ve already addressed.

Anyhow the point I’m trying to make is: ‘why weren’t all these super casual, story obsessed people complaining about dungeons?’ And I think the answer lies with the rewards and not with the quality of the story or the difficulty/barrier of entry of the content. Imo some people are using the story as an excuse in order to get easier, although more time consuming, access to the legendary envoy armor.
If you’re truly interested in the story, there are plenty of resources, both inside and outside of the game and there is no need to waste development time on a ‘story mode’ that players will play once.
If you’re interested in the legendary armor and the ‘prestige’ of the skin, just get good and do the raids in their current form. Nobody (aside from envious players that don’t want anybody else to accomplish what they can’t) will benefit from making legendary armor into another brainless farm achievement.

Also, telling me my opinion is just my opinion and doesn’t matter is NOT an argument.

petyr baelish.9675:

How do the people that are ‘missing out on the story’ feel about dungeons? While dungeons are easier to complete, they provide barriers that are similar to those encountered when raiding. A single dungeon provides more story than all of the raid wings combined do. I suppose this isn’t a problem because you can get all the dungeon rewards by playing pvp.

It’s because the “barriers” to access that content in dungeons isn’t really higher than the average difficulty level of the game. It’s in fact lower than difficulty in some of the LS instances. The sole exception to this is the aetherpath, but really, the less i’m reminded about Scarlet the better (also, with the exception of clusterkitten of the ooze running chamber, after the late power creep, it’s not even really that hard once you’ve been through there 2-3 times, just annoying)

Raids on the other hand do have visible barriers that do prevent most of the people from enjoying them.

petyr baelish.9675:

FYI: When I’m talking about dungeons, I’m mainly referring to the harder ones (arah) and not just AC explorable. I’ve seen pugs take several hours to complete arah, or just give up after hours of trying to kill lupi.

Yeah, it took me over 2 hours to do arah 3 the first time. It was still relatively easy except for one single hiccup at Lupi. And the fun part with lupi is we ran into trouble, because we heard so much about how hard it is and decided to read a guide first. We wiped thanks to it. Then we decided it isn’t working and we should just YOLO him, and it went just fine.

And that was before the nerfs and powercreep.

petyr baelish.9675:

Anyhow the point I’m trying to make is: ‘why weren’t all these super casual, story obsessed people complaining about dungeons?’

Obviously, because they were able to play dungeons just fine. I mean, the dungeon difficulty level is even being suggested as the basis for easy mode…

So, in short, you have no point at all.

Astralporing.1957:

petyr baelish.9675:

How do the people that are ‘missing out on the story’ feel about dungeons? While dungeons are easier to complete, they provide barriers that are similar to those encountered when raiding. A single dungeon provides more story than all of the raid wings combined do. I suppose this isn’t a problem because you can get all the dungeon rewards by playing pvp.

It’s because the “barriers” to access that content in dungeons isn’t really higher than the average difficulty level of the game. It’s in fact lower than difficulty in some of the LS instances. The sole exception to this is the aetherpath, but really, the less i’m reminded about Scarlet the better (also, with the exception of clusterkitten of the ooze running chamber, after the late power creep, it’s not even really that hard once you’ve been through there 2-3 times, just annoying)

Raids on the other hand do have visible barriers that do prevent most of the people from enjoying them.

petyr baelish.9675:

FYI: When I’m talking about dungeons, I’m mainly referring to the harder ones (arah) and not just AC explorable. I’ve seen pugs take several hours to complete arah, or just give up after hours of trying to kill lupi.

Yeah, it took me over 2 hours to do arah 3 the first time. It was still relatively easy except for one single hiccup at Lupi. And the fun part with lupi is we ran into trouble, because we heard so much about how hard it is and decided to read a guide first. We wiped thanks to it. Then we decided it isn’t working and we should just YOLO him, and it went just fine.

And that was before the nerfs and powercreep.

petyr baelish.9675:

Anyhow the point I’m trying to make is: ‘why weren’t all these super casual, story obsessed people complaining about dungeons?’

Obviously, because they were able to play dungeons just fine. I mean, the dungeon difficulty level is even being suggested as the basis for easy mode…

So, in short, you have no point at all.

When i talk about dungeons I’m referring to arah and maybe aetherpath.

I already mentioned the similar barriers in a previous post: need to form a group, 1 person that can take initiative, people must be willing to communicate and listen. And although there are no ‘hard’ requirements for dungeons, you can make the run a lot easier by adjusting your comp and bringing the right build.

If you can clear arah exp, you should be able to clear many of the raid bosses as well. Therefore, you have no need for the easymode raid in order to ‘experience the story’. If you can’t clear arah, why didn’t you complain about not being able to ‘experience the story’ before? My theory: you didn’t care about dungeon rewards but you do care about raid rewards and you’re lazy so you don’t want to put in the same amount of effort(=/=time) as other players.

I’d like to see some of these guys try Arah p4 in 30 mins with just 1 wipe in a random LFG pug ayyy lmao

Actually any arah path. I’ll give u 500g if you make a video of you randomly pugging Ohoni, arah dungeon 30 minutes just 1 wipe in LFG.

fishball.7204:

If you’re elitist you don’t deserve any content in GW2 period.
You already have other MMOs full of raids you can enjoy and do stuff in.

Fixed that for you.
Maybe not the 99% is the source of irritation, maybe it’s the 1%.

Ohoni.6057:

It really depends. People can have difficulty interacting with others and still fully enjoy the majority of the content in GW2. Most of it can be done essentially treating the other players as NPCs, IF that is how you feel comfortable playing. You really don’t need to chat or coordinate with other players to do most of the content. Now plenty of players, myself included, enjoy having conversations with people, but there shouldn’t be any stigma attached to players who are uncomfortable doing so. MMOs are great for helping to bridge social gaps, but pressuring people into it does not help.

Yes – and they are enjoying the majority of GW2 content – what they should not expect to do is enjoy ALL the content.
Nor should the developers bend over backwards to make this game more enjoyable to a category of individuals that clearly chose the wrong game if they have severe difficulty in interacting with others.

There’s no pressure – either do it or don’t. Nobody is forcing anybody. And as far as going without communicating – if you are a good player you can raid without needing comms and can just treat others like NPCs as you suggested – but you have to be good and they have to be good too.

Ohoni.6057:

And if this were three years ago, you might have a point. But raids weren’t added until just recently and the game’s got on fine without them, so it stands to reason that plenty of players could have spent the last three years enjoying how GW2 was, and not wanting the sort of “enhanced teamwork” that you insist they should have expected all along.

Never did the developers intend to have this game devoid of “teamwork”. Also there were a lot of threads on these very forums for people ASKING for “enhanced teamwork” in the form of more solid roles in combat. Do you remember those? Before raids there was a lot of talk with people asking for more clearly defined interdependent roles in GW2.

Ohoni.6057:

Yes.

Wew. Please tell. It must be had being the only one with all the answers.

Ohoni.6057:

Because they’ve only sold a few million copies, so it’s likely lower than that. I’m basing my estimate on copies sold, profit figures, general participation in the game and social media, I think it’s fair to assume that the number of relatively active players around HoT’s launch was above 100K, but likely less than three million or so.

How exactly do you gauge “general participation in the game and social media” ? Do you stand in LA and count people?

Ohoni.6057:

I think you’d have a hard time arguing that the game’s active population is as high as it was when HoT launched. How much that population has shifted, we don’t really know, but we can see the forest, even if we can’t count the trees.

No – this is speculation. You might assume and it might be a good guess but you don’t know. Also – it is a recorded phenomenon for all MMO expansions that after that exp releases the population goes up then back down again. Does that mean it went down because of raids like you initially suggested?

Ohoni.6057:

But just in your previous post you claimed that raids were supposed to be ultra-hardcore special snowflake rewards content that could never be offered through reward tracks unlike those super-casual dungeons. Which is it?

You seem to have a difficult time understanding. I’ll try to be clearer.
Raids are that ultra-hardcore high-end PvE content that should not have alternative means of reward acquisition.

Dungeons I gave as an example of the developers intending to make hardcore content ( to counter your point that they didn’t want to have hardcore content in GW2). However the developers failed miserably at this and dungeons ended up being pretty casual and easy – which in turn meant they didn’t fill the hardcore niche they were originally created for. Realizing this the developers gave alternate means to obtain dungeon rewards BECAUSE they realized their dungeons weren’t high-end hardcore PvE content that should keep its rewards locked behind the content itself.

Is it clearer?

Ohoni.6057:

Sure, and if you build a man out of straw it’s easier to attack than an actual human opponent.

Actually – my point stands. There is no reason WHY they should give out rewards to you just because they can.

Ohoni.6057:

Not yet, but they do include all the HoT map weapons and armor, which are no harder to acquire. I wouldn’t be at all shocked or displeased if those other items were added at a later date.

Are HoT maps weapons and armor harder to acquire than my previous example? No. You might think they are – but they really aren’t.

Ohoni.6057:

We’ll see what they do with The Ascension in future. I have a feeling that the “other way to earn it if you miss out this season” might not be just another PvP method. In any case, earning the Ascension takes WAY less practical ability than earning Envoy armor.

I agree – they made it too easy – but if they do put Envoy armor behind PvP – like I previously said – I believe you should be legendary AT LEAST to start trying to obtain it.

Ohoni.6057:

but there’s no such thing as “high skill rewards.” There are just rewards that, for the time being, are gated behind high skill content. Nothing says that this needs to remain the case. Gating things behind high skill only means that plenty of players will miss out, and there’s nothing positive about that.

And nothing says that this needs to change. There’s nothing negative about people missing out on things they didn’t work to attain. It’s not like the items are not there – it’s just that the players can’t be bothered to obtain them.
They are not “missing out” – they are opting out.

Ohoni.6057:

There should be alternatives. If there is a 20ft high platform, sure, you can have a rope to climb onto it, but you should also have stairs for those without the upper body strength to use the rope, and also a ramp for those without the leg strength to make it up the stairs. The ramp is a longer path around, but it would get you there eventually. Dedication can be an appropriate substitution for skill.

Ok sure – but if we’re going to give everyone a chance in spite of how unfit they are for the initial challenge those stairs and that ramp better be 10 kms long.

Ohoni.6057:

No, you’re confusing capability with enjoyment. That’s utter nonsense. I could “step up” and get better at raids, I could even eventually clear raids. That should not be confused with enjoying raids, I would NEVER enjoy raids at their current difficulty level, under any circumstances. To say that I could “just step up and enjoy raids” is equivalent to me telling you that you could “just step up and enjoy farming moas in Queensdale.” If you don’t enjoy something, you don’t enjoy it.

The silly thing here is you actually believe you need to enjoy content to play content. As I illustrated in my previous post that is NOT the case. Most MMO players don’t enjoy doing the content past a certain point – yet do it for the rewards. If you want to be stubborn and only do what you enjoy I guess you should look forward to enjoying the benefits of lack of legendary armor.

I don’t enjoy “farming moas in queensdale” – but if the drops were good and I needed the farm – I would kitten well farm them.

Ohoni.6057:

You do not deserve to make a statement if it comes at the expense of others having the armor they want.

Why ? How come YOU know what I deserve and what I don’t deserve. How come what you say is right? I say I do deserve that statement especially because OTHERS can get the armor they want if they want it badly enough to work for it.

Ohoni.6057:

If you want to make a statement without costing people armor options, that’s all well and good, but you wanting to make a statement is no excuse to deny others the armor they want. If you want a fancy title, or a nametag flair, or some non-skin method of showing off what you’re digitally swinging with, then that’s all well and good, but it’s no excuse to deny other players armor that they would enjoy having.

Again – why? Because it doesn’t sit well with you? It sits well with me and many others.
Why do you get to draw the line? Why is a title fine but a skin isn’t? Why are not both a title and skin unfair? Who exactly gives you the right to tell me what I should and should not get in this game?

Ohoni.6057:

But if there is a reasonable change they could make, that would cause you to enjoy it (and presumably many others), and that wouldn’t harm the experience for any of the existing WvW players, then maybe they should consider it. If they can add more happy players to the mode, it would be to everyone’s overall benefit.

The change WOULD harm the experience for existing WvW players just like your proposed change to raids – so I don’t consider it. You can’t please everyone all the time.

Ohoni.6057:

Clearly when I say “I would enjoy easy mode raids,” I mean “if they implemented them vaguely along the lines I’m discussing.” Obviously they could make a complete mess of them and I would not enjoy that, but from what I have seen of the raids, if they implemented that existing content, but using standard tuning techniques they’ve used on other content to reduce the challenge level, I would enjoy that experience.

But is your enjoyment worth the chance that you might be wrong? and all the developer resources to make that mode?

Ohoni.6057:

I care about your enjoyment, and I would fight for your enjoyment so long as it doesn’t come at others expense. But if you can only be happy in having something because other people do not, then I’m sorry, I cannot support that, and do not find it a justifiable equivalency to what I’m asking.

I’m not the one that is ruining others enjoyment – it is their own self-imposed incapacity that locks them out of the content and the rewards they seek.

Ohoni.6057:

You keep claiming that you’ve been playing the game this entire time, and yet somehow completely missed everything that it’s about. GW2 is not a treadmill like other MMOs, it is designed to have a relatively flat curve, that once you hit 80 you can do pretty much anything you like, and it’s almost all equivalent.

Do you want me to screencap my /age in game?
This game doesn’t mean what you want it to mean – it means something to you and something else entirely different to me. It means something to each of us. I’ve not “missed out” on what GW2 is about – simply my experience differs from yours.
You’re not the one “in the know” with me being left out. That’s just your own opinion.

GW2 was never designed to have a vertical gear-driven lock-out treadmill – it was never designed to not have a horizontal skin-driven treadmill. All MMOs have treadmills – only GW2 promised it wouldn’t have a level, gear and other vertical progression factor driven treadmill.

Nobody said that once you hit 80 “it’s all equivalent” – simply that once you hit 80 you don’t have to go VERTICAL anymore. Horizontal however is a whole new story.

Ohoni.6057:

A pure time gate is more time. A repetition gate is more time and effort. If you have ten buckets that contain five bricks each, then it would only take ten trips, over a given amount of time, to carry them 50ft away. But if you were not strong enough to lift five bricks at once, then you could remove each brick and carry each individually, and it would take you five times as many trips, and nearly five times as long, five times the effort, but it would be manageable when the initial task might not be for you. It would be easier, but it would take as much work.

Except your analogy is wrong because we’re not carrying bricks here.
Raids require coordination and concentration at a certain “threshold” level. If you can’t pass it you don’t progress – regardless of time and effort spent. When you wipe your progress is null and you try again.

Your easy mode takes that away because it makes wipes not a concern – so the effort in concentration and focus put in is much lower since the pressure of a wipe isn’t there.

They’re not only taking longer – they’re also having an easier time.